Buses in Charlotte

Charlotte in Duchessland provided bus services since 1918. It forms a key part in Charlotte's bus system, with over 60.356 million trips per day (which is 22,029.940 million trips per year).

History of buses in Charlotte
Charlotte's bus services date back to 1915, when a company, called Rosalina, Haywoods and Toulon Bus Limited, was founded as a property investment company and would soon be expanded to bus services in 1918. Charlotte's first bus route – running from Rosalina to Haywoods District, opened in 1918, using a bus that was converted from a truck.

In 1922, there were 12 bus services active at that time, but four new routes opened in 1924. In 1926, the first bus route to recieve a number was the service 55 running from Hawkwoods to Granvilles District via McPherson. The bus route was operated by the new company, Charlotte Bus Company.

In 1929, a standardisation of Charlotte's bus features came into force, with the front sign being a two-piece destination blind configuration (left showing the final destination of the bus and right showing the route taken to the destination), the side sign carrying only the route number glowing in the dark in yellow colour, and the back sign carrying both the route number, the final destination and the route taken to the destination).

Colour flags indicating the destination were introduced in 1951 with the introduction of double-decker buses in Charlotte (Daimler CVG5). From 1958, a ZB-like font used for wayfinding in Charlotte's bus system was introduced. The ZB-like font still remains used in older bus stops and destination blinds today.

Charlotte's first articulated bus went into service by 1977. The model was MAN SG192.

A takeover of Charlotte's bus services by Disney Transport in order to line up with Duchessville was considered as a plan in 1979 but it never came into frutition. Therefore, Charlotte Bus Company continues to operate today.

The first bus model in Charlotte to integrate the route number sign with the destination blind was the Volvo B10M that was introduced there in late 1986. Since then, the route number sign became always integrated with the destination blind and is lighted by a control light, rather than as a separate from the destination blind which glows in the dark itself. Colour flags became absent as well for all new builds, but old bus models bought by Charlotte Bus Company until 1986 that have this feature still used their colour flags until 1995, when it was phased out in favour of black/white route numbers on coloured backgrounds.

Since 2007, coloured route number LED displays have been used.

Today, 'up' (to downtown Charlotte) and 'down' services (from downtown Charlotte) have distinguishing colours: 'down' services are usually white numbers on red, while 'up' services are usually white numbers on yellow (with a black outline) on destination indicators, and black numbers on yellow in elsewhere applications in the Charlotte bus system, however, colours may vary.

The approved colours to be used in Charlotte's bus system as route number background colours are:

The approved colours to be used in Charlotte's bus system as route number text colours are: Wayfinding font history


 * 1956 - 1994: ZB-like font